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The Prime Minister has led the public attack on Cage. Flickr/Open University. Some rights reserved.

Last
week, in a widely trailed speech, the Prime
Minister laid out the government's counter-terrorism strategy for the next five
years. It is necessary, Cameron explained, to challenge the idea that political
violence is rooted in 'historic injustices and recent wars, or... poverty and
hardship'. Terrorism, he said, is caused
by 'extremist ideology', which his government is determined to confront.

There
was little new in Cameron's speech, which simply affirmed in strong terms the
authoritarian drift of counter-terrorism policy. Influenced by the security
apparatus and its supporters in Parliament, and by neoconservative think tanks,
such as the Henry Jackson Society, and
(partly) state funded propaganda outfits like Quilliam, policy
makers have become increasingly preoccupied with 'non-violent extremism' rather
than political violence. Officially this is portrayed as a political campaign
against 'intolerance'. Thus Cameron claims that his government will be facing
down 'terrorism' and 'extremism' by asserting 'basic liberal values such as
democracy, freedom and sexual equality'.

‘For too long, we have
been a passively tolerant society’

On
the face of it this seems agreeable enough. But the actual policy is another
matter. As was pointed out in a recent letter to which we
were signatories, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 will 'mean that
individuals working within statutory organisations must report individuals
suspected of being "potential terrorists" to external bodies for
"de-radicalisation"'. In effect, the government has drawn the entire
public sector into its controversial counter-extremist agenda, meaning that public
servants once responsible for the welfare of citizens – including children – must
now monitor their behaviour, appearance and political views, feeding into the
most unaccountable and repressive elements of the state. Since 2014, 400
children, even as young as three-years-old, have been
referred to the government's 'Channel' programme for 'de-radicalisation'. The
true political implications of the policy, which has now passed into law, were made clear in May when Cameron told the first meeting
of the National Security Council: 'For too long, we have been a passively
tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will
leave you alone".' So much for
liberalism.

The
letter we signed
in opposition to this plainly authoritarian approach, published before
Cameron's speech, was an attempt to bring together a range of academics and
others to draw attention to the problem of repressive anti-terrorism laws. Written
by two academics and initiated by the human rights group Cage, it seemed to us
a fairly unexceptional statement of the problem. Ten days after the letter was
published, Cameron singled out Cage in the aforementioned speech, describing it
as an extremist organisation which had called 'Jihadi John a "beautiful
young man" and told people to "support the jihad" in Iraq and
Afghanistan'. Working with Cage, he said, 'shame[d]' organisations like the
National Union of Students.

The
NUS's Black Students' Officer, Malia Bouattia, responded by condemning the 'state-sponsored
witch-hunt of Muslims'. But the NUS itself was quick to point out that it had already
publicly declared that it
would no longer work with Cage, as had another of the organisation's former
partners, Amnesty International. Moreover, Cage's
former donors, under intense pressure from the Charity Commission, had already
made public undertakings that they will never support the organisation's work,
and last year banks unilaterally froze the accounts of a
number of Muslim groups, including those of Cage staff and
their family members. In attacking Cage then, Cameron was simply lending his
Prime Ministerial authority to a campaign that had already proved remarkably
successful in marginalising this small organisation. So what is Cage and what has
it done to invite such opprobrium?

What is Cage?

Cage
is an advocacy group and one of very few organisations working with victims of
abuse or mistreatment in the 'War on Terror'. Through research, advocacy and
casework it offers support for those who are being denied due process when accused
of terrorism offences – which we should remember are much broader than what
most people consider 'terrorism'. By putting citizens in touch with lawyers and
informing them of their rights, Cage has been able to develop the trust of many
Muslims subjected to harassment, torture and other abuses. As such, it has documented
cases of miscarriages of justice about which we would otherwise know very
little.

Cage
began its work in 2003 with a focus on Guantanamo Bay, and was one of the
leading organisations working on publicising the names of those detained at the
base. Since then it has consistently documented the involvement and complicity
of UK and US governments in torture and rendition. In December 2006, it was the
first organisation to publish a list of
almost 100 prisons used to detain and torture terror suspects. It is also
reportedly the only organisation to offer
support to Muslims harassed by the security services. In the case of Michael
Adebolajo, Cage was instrumental in revealing evidence that he was tortured in
Kenya, which led to an official
inquiry, ordered by
Cameron. These activities are in themselves important in holding the security
services to account.

Another
little remarked upon aspect of the work Cage has done is their campaigning for
the release of hostages. In 2006, it worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams in
Iraq to secure the release of
Norman Kember and Harmeet Soodan – both of whom were
spared execution. More recently, it worked for the release of Alan Henning, a
taxi driver who had gone to Syria to help deliver aid relief to refugees and
was taken prisoner by ISIS. His friends approached Cage's Director, the former
Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, for help, and Cage made several appeals to
Henning's captors calling for his release. Begg used contacts from his work in
Syria investigating UK and US involvement in rendition, and prepared a letter
to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghadi pleading for Henning's release.

The latest allegations

For
years Cage has faced accusations of 'extremism', the substance of which we will
examine further below. The latest allegations, which seem to have been quite effective
in finally marginalising the organisation from public life, relate to comments
made by Cage's director of research, Asim Qureshi; firstly about Mohammed
Emwazi, the British-Kuwaiti ISIS fighter dubbed 'Jihadi John' by the tabloids,
and secondly in relation to the practice of stoning adulterous women. The
headlines tell the story:

Mohammed
Emwazi had been on Cage's casefile for several years. So when news broke that
he was 'Jihadi John', Cage held a press conference announcing the publications of
a comprehensive account of their
correspondence with him. This included details of Emwazi's harassment by the
security service. This was despite Emwazi having never been charged with, or
even arrested for, any terrorism-related crime. Emwazi faced repeated detention
at airports, interrogation by MI5, deportation, and prevention from returning
to Kuwait to take up a job and get married. In addition, the security services
had tried to recruit Emwazi as an informant. When he refused, he was told:
'You’re going to be known... you’re going to be followed... life will be harder
for you'. In a letter sent to the
journalist Robert Verkaik, Emwazi wrote that he was a 'dead man walking'. The picture that emerged was of course
contested by the authorities. It is reported that Emwazi was
'mixing in radical Islamist circles' prior to attracting the attention of MI5. But
even if true, questions still remain about their tactics and harassment – as well
as the accusation that they tried to strangle him.

The
evidence presented by Cage at that press conference amounted, as Ben Hayes puts it, to 'a
credible allegation of state-sanctioned blackmail of one of our citizens upon
pain of having his life ruined by unaccountable security forces.'

Speaking
at the press conference, Cage's Qureshi contrasted the young man he had corresponded
with, with the brutality displayed by 'Jihadi John', describing the Emwazi he
had known years earlier as 'extremely gentle'. Qureshi's comments were seized
upon and shamelessly distorted by the right-wing press. The Telegraph, for example, reported that Qureshi had
said that 'Emwazi is "extremely gentle"', removing the past tense
from his comments, which had made clear he was referring to Emwazi before his apparent 'radicalisation'.

Perhaps
Qureshi's comments were ill advised given the attacks that were likely to
follow any high profile and credible accusations against the security service. But
that does not detract from the fact that the media response was both overwrought
and plainly misleading; not to mention a serious dereliction of the
journalistic duty to hold power to account. Instead of addressing the evidence
presented by Cage, and pursuing the awkward questions raised about the British
intelligence services, the British media decided that Cage themselves were the
story.

The
organisation's representatives were in fact unequivocal in their condemnation
of 'Jihadi John' and the violence of ISIS. In an interview on Sky News, Cage
spokesperson Cerie Bullivant said: 'nobody here is apologising or trying to
make an excuse for what happened… We are shocked when we see beheadings… I am
shocked by something as brutal as this... everybody should be held accountable
for any torture that they do or any killings'. Yet Cage has continually faced
claims that it is in some way responsible for, or has condoned, such acts.

The politics of the
last atrocity

Increasingly
marginalised by a media smear campaign, Cage has now achieved the status of
public pariah once reserved for critics of government policy on Northern Ireland
before the peace process. Broadcast media anchors have treated Cage
representatives with open contempt and hostility, routinely putting words in
their mouths and insisting they condemn abuses in Muslims countries, or the
latest 'terror' attack. In Ireland, this became known as the politics of the
last atrocity. The British state and their mainstream media
cheerleaders adopted the 'hostile interview
technique' for critics of British rule. Interviewees were
branded as apologists for
terrorism if they would not indulge in selective condemnation of the
latest act of violence by the official enemy. Meanwhile, journalists, fearless
in interrogating critics of British policy, managed to maintain a tight-lipped
silence when interviewing British Ministers after the latest British or
Loyalist abuse or attack.

Imagine
the reverse of the current pattern of media 'monstering' of Cage. Imagine that
the mainstream media repeatedly required UK, US or Israeli officials to condemn
extra-judicial executions or the killing of civilians by their forces. In
Pakistan alone, for example, the US is estimated to have
killed between 172 and 207 children in drone strikes since 2004, yet no
condemnations are demanded of US officials, let alone civil society groups
sympathetic with the US military. In its latest assault on Gaza, Israel killed
577 children, and in response, Cameron remarked that it is
'important to speak out' in favour of Israel's right 'to defend against
indiscriminate attacks'. Imagine the BBC refusing to interview Cameron or any
other Minister of the Crown until they condemn such crimes. It is of course literally
incredible to imagine. Yet this is precisely what representatives of Cage have
been subjected to, and in relation to acts for which they bear no
responsibility and for which they have professed no sympathy. Treated as
partisans in a terrorist war, they are required to issue meaningless condemnations
before being allowed to speak.

The 'salafi-jihadi'
smear

Having
attacked Qureshi for his comments on Emwazi, Cage's critics focused on comments
he made when asked about stoning and Islamic law. The charges are based on comments
Qureshi made in two interviews, the first with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
on Russia Todayin
2012, and the second with the right-wing TV presenter Andrew Neil on the BBC's This Week shortly
after the Emwazi press conference.

In
the interview with Assange, Qureshi spoke of his 'personal' belief in 'Islamic
concepts' in relation to punishments and the rule of law, in the abstract. But
he also noted that the practical implementation of Sharia today often 'totally
goes against what the rule of law requires from the Sharia'. In the case of
stoning (of both men and women) for adultery he said that the 'evidentiary
standard is four live witnesses to the act of sexual relations at the time it
is taking place'. So, 'from an evidentiary perspective it is almost impossible
to establish that'. 'The fact that you have', he said, 'the punishment even
taking place means that effectively the rule of law is being abused at some
point, because it is impossible to establish that evidentiary standard'. Whilst
hardly an unequivocal condemnation, this is a rather more complex picture than
that recognised in the headlines.

On
the BBC, Andrew Neil confronted Qureshi about the views of Sheikh Haitham
al-Haddad, a Muslim scholar who Neil claimed was Qureshi's 'spiritual mentor
and guide'. Qureshi responded that Haddad was just 'one scholar in the UK that
I think has an important contribution to make'.
Neil stated that Haddad:

believes in the following: Female Genital Mutilation is not only
acceptable, it is probably obligatory; that you should not question a man's
right to hit his wife; that non-Muslim prisoners should be taken as slaves;
that Jews are descendants of pigs; death by stoning is OK for adultery and
homosexuality is a crime against humanity.

He
asked Qureshi if he had 'been guided to believe' these things, to which Qureshi
responded: 'I've never been guided to believe any of those things'. Pressed
further, Qureshi stated, 'I am not a theologian', and when asked directly about
his comments to Julian Assange on stoning stated: 'I do a lot of work, actually,
against the death penalty'. 'What I am about,' he continued, 'and what my
organisation is about is due process of the law.'

There
is no doubt that Haddad expresses a conservative strand of Islam, in particular
on the appropriateness of punishment fitting the crime (Hudud) and on questions
of sexuality. It is not clear, though, that the other views attributed to him
are accurately rendered. Much of the substance of the question from Neil
appears to be based on a report from the Council of Ex Muslims, an organisation
close to the 'new atheist' movement which enjoys the 'generous support' of the
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, amongst other benefactors. Their
2014 report Evangelising Hate:Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), was drawn to Andrew Neil's
attention on Twitter in advance of the programme.

In
the end, as Qureshi argued to Andrew Neil: 'What we are talking about here is
how counter terrorism policy is affecting our youth here in the UK. What you've done is that you are trying to
conflate theological issues within Islam with what we're talking about'. The
alternative view – as put by Andrew Neil – is that Cage is 'putting up a
moderate front and behind it hangs a jihadist agenda'. Ultimately, this is what
the accusations against Cage boil down to: the claim that it may be working on
civil liberties and human rights, but these activities are simply a means to
advance a broader political agenda, and one which poses a grave threat to
democracy and ultimately to human rights.

But
whatever one might say about the politics or religious beliefs of individuals working
at Cage, the fact remains that it is a human rights organisation and bases its
work on the notion that everyone should have access to due process, including
those suspected of 'terrorism' offences.
This is not an especially controversial position. Indeed, it is that
held by other human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International and
Reprieve. Critics of human rights work have always sought to deflect the issues
raised by attempting to conflate criticism with particular political agendas,
or by seeking to portray human rights workers as partisans. In the 1970s and
1980s, for example, Amnesty International came under intense pressure when it
queried British human rights abuses in Ireland. An example of this is Amnesty's
response to the suspected extrajudicial execution of three unarmed members of
the IRA on the rock of Gibraltar in March 1988. Jonathan Power, the author of The
Story of Amnesty International (see p.172), writes:

When Amnesty called for an inquiry,
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher accused the organization of being 'IRA
apologists'. So intense was the criticism of Amnesty by both the government and
sections of the media that many British members resigned. Amnesty stuck to its
guns and, finally, in 1995, the European Court of Human Rights declared that
the killings by the British army were unlawful.

Another
even more apposite historical analogy is the British state's position on the
National Council of Civil Liberties – now Liberty, the well-known liberal
campaigning group led by Shami Chakrabarti – during the Cold War. In 1951, MI5 advised the Home
Office that despite being 'ostensibly based on Liberal principles', the
National Council of Civil Liberties had been 'penetrated from the start by
Communists' and since it had 'Communists and Communist-sympathisers [sic.]
serving as officers', membership was 'a prima facie case for
reference to our records'.

Thatcher described Amnesty as "IRA apologists". Flickr/BBC Radio 4. Some rights reserved.

Indeed, the future Cabinet Ministers Harriet
Harman and Patricia Hewitt were both placed
under surveillance by MI5 whilst working there. This is more than a coincidence
of history. As two of us showed
in a 2011 report, the key think tanks that have influenced the shift in
counter-terrorism policy away from terrorism and towards 'extremist' ideas,
explicitly sought to revive Cold War style counter-subversion. In one 2009
pamphlet published by 'Cameron's favourite think tank' Policy
Exchange, for example, the authors criticised the then focus on security,
favouring instead an effort to counter the 'non-violent radicals' they claimed
were 'indoctrinating young people with an ideology of hostility to western
values.' The report explicitly called for the British state to engage in
large-scale political counter-subversion, criticising MI5 for 'not draw[ing] as
much as it might on British experiences during the Cold War'.

Smoke without fire: the
left-wing criticisms of Cage

If
the accusations and insinuations were limited to neoconservative think tanks,
right wing politicians and the reactionary press, they could be easily dismissed
by liberals, leftists and human rights activists as nothing more than cynical
political smears. And in large part the claims made against Cage are just that.
But attacks on Cage and its leading figures have also come from sections of the
left, and this has afforded legitimacy to reactionary attacks, and discouraged
some who would otherwise have supported Cage's work.

Much
of the left-wing criticism has come from secularist, anti-racist activists,
particularly those close to the campaigning groups Women Against Fundamentalism
and Southall Black Sisters. Both these feminist organisations emerged out of
the radical anti-racist movement and are notable for having advanced a
left-wing critique of multiculturalism, opposing both racist state practices and
'religious fundamentalism'. Their argument, in short, is that through elevating
more conservative figures as 'community leaders' multiculturalist policies have
strengthened patriarchal and reactionary forces amongst minorities and thereby
fostered identity politics, patriarchy and religious conservatism at the
expense of the secular, cosmopolitan vision of the radical anti-racist
movement. This placed these secularist activists in opposition to the Muslim
Council of Great Britain (MCB) and over time increasingly in step with elements
of the government and the conservative movement, as the MCB was attacked and
then sidelined for its opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – part of
a broader political attack on multiculturalism. This strange political
convergence between radical feminist anti-racists and various Islamophobic
movements come to the fore very publicly in early 2010 when Gita Sahgal, a
co-founder of Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism, publicly
attacked Cage's Moazzam Begg in the pages of the Sunday Times.

In
a relatively short article leading to an international media storm, Sahgal aired
her objections to her then employer Amnesty International partnering with Begg
and Cage. Sahgal, who was head of Amnesty International's Gender Unit at the
time, was quoted as saying: 'it was absolutely wrong to legitimise [Moazzam
Begg] as a partner'. The article quoted an email she had sent to her bosses in
which she described Cage as a 'jihadi' organisation and Begg as 'Britain's most
famous supporter of the Taliban'. The inflammatory accusations were repeated
across the British and international media, putting Amnesty under intense
pressure to sever its relationship with Cage.

Gita
Sahgal was suspended and later forced to resign from Amnesty, becoming
something of a cause célèbre for
neoconservatives, the pro-war left and similar Islamophobic groupings. She and
her supporters then wrote a number of articles attacking both her former
employer and Moazzam Begg. In one such piece, published
in DNA India a week after her forced
departure from Amnesty, Sahgal writes: 'One of the issues at stake is whether
there is any evidence.' We agree. Indeed, we think it revealing how little
attention was paid then, and has been since, to the substance of the
allegations against Cage, which have left an enduring air of suspicion around
the organisation, making it and those it works with more vulnerable to abuse at
the hands of the authorities.

In
her DNA India piece, which to our
knowledge is the most detailed critique Sahgal has published, she refers to
Cage as 'an obscure outfit devoted to the promotion of those detainees and
convicted prisoners from groups that are associated with al-Qaeda and other
exponents of the ideology that is known as salafi jihadism.' In so far as the
piece contains any concrete allegations, they relate first to Begg's political
activities and affiliations before his incarceration and torture by the United
States, and secondly to his subsequent endorsement of 'defensive jihad'. Below
we examine both aspects.

Many
politically engaged Muslims in the 1990s were animated by the conflicts in
Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, and Cage's Moazzam Begg
was no exception. In her DNA Indiapiece, Sahgal
notes that Begg – as he details in his book Enemy
Combatant – ran a bookshop in Birmingham which sold literature by Abdullah
Azzam, a Palestinian who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and who before his
death in 1989 co-founded groupings which became Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba. For
Sahgal, this makes Begg beyond the pale politically. Towards the end of her piece she asks
rhetorically:

Would Amnesty
International members and supporters decide that a man who had once sold Mein
Kampf but now said that Hitler, who was a great inspiration, went a little over
the top in carrying out the final solution, be considered a suitable person to
adorn Amnesty platforms?

This
is a remarkably inflammatory passage and the sort of political rhetoric that
has for the most part been limited to the more extreme fringes of the Zionist
and Counterjihad movements. But let us
assume that the analogy is meant to be taken seriously. In what sense is
Abdullah Azzam comparable to Hitler? Mein
Kampf is a racist, genocidal, ultra-nationalist tract and the movement its
author led was committed to territorial expansion, colonialism and ethnic cleansing.
Can the same be said of the writings of Azzam or any other seminal figure in
the various political movements conventionally referred to as 'Islamist' or
'jihadist'? Religiously inspired political movements in the Middle East are not
homogenous and different groups have pursued different goals and adopted
different strategies and tactics at different times. But whilst generally they
tend to be broadly conservative – indeed many are highly reactionary – even the
most extreme groupings bear only the most superficial resemblance to the German
National Socialists. Even the neoconservative historian Niall Ferguson has described the analogy
as a 'fantasy' used to morally blackmail opponents of the 'War on Terror';
remarked that 'there's virtually no overlap between the ideology of al Qaeda
and fascism'; and suggested that a more historically literate comparison would
be with the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. If Ferguson is right, should
we refuse to support anyone who at one stage sold the writings of Lenin or
Trotsky? If so, that would likely include anyone who has worked for any major
book retailer. And what about those who have sold any of the writings of the Argentinean
revolutionary Che Guevara, who in 1967 declared:

We must carry the war
into every corner the enemy happens to carry it: to his home, to his centres of
entertainment; a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment
of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack
him wherever he may be; make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may
move. Then his moral fibre shall begin
to decline. He will even become more beastly, but we shall notice how the signs
of decadence begin to appear.

And
what, conversely, should be our position on those who have sold any of the
writings of Henry Kissinger, who in 1970 instructed the US military
to escalate their bombing campaign against neutral Cambodia with the words,
'Anything that flies on anything that moves.'? After all, Kissinger, through
this and his broader involvement in US aggression in South East Asia is
implicated not only in terrorism, but in some of the most grave crimes of the
20th century.

What
is remarkable about the criticisms of Begg by Sahgal and others is that no one
alleges that he has been involved in any violence, or that he has voiced any
support for the targeting of civilians or for 'offensive jihad' in general. Indeed,
Begg and other members of Cage have stressed again and again that they have
never, and never will, support attacks on civilians. But this is not enough for
critics of Cage, for whom the issue is support for 'defensive jihad' – and
support for 'jihad', Sahgal argues, 'whether of the defensive or offensive
variety, constitutes a profound threat to all human rights.' This is the second
and more extensive claim made in the DNA
India piece, and Sahgal and her supporters have repeated it elsewhere.

In
a statement published by the New York Review of Book, for example,
Sahgal made oblique reference to 'the views of Begg, his associates, and his
organization', but the only specific allegation was that they had expressed
support for 'jihad in self-defence'. This is true, but it is a curious basis
for criticism since 'defensive jihad' – that is the violent resistance to
invasion or oppression – happens to be a right under international law. This
begs the question: what position on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,
for example, could Begg have taken to make himself acceptable to Sahgal and her
supporters? Must he publicly oppose violence in all circumstances to make himself
an acceptable partner? This is not an issue Sahgal thinks to address, since she
chooses to interpret jihad not as a right or obligation to be exercised in
particular circumstances, but as an 'ideology' which 'promotes the destruction
of human rights generally' and women and minorities in particular. In a
subsequent article published on Open Democracy, Sahgal goes further,
claiming that 'defensive jihad' is 'after all, waged to establish systematic
discrimination'. She thus ignores the question of under what circumstances it
is legitimate to use violence, arguing instead that by expressing even
equivocal support for violent resistance in Islamic terms, Begg and his
associates, no matter what they say, by
definition support discrimination and the violent subordination of women
and minorities.

A
similar argument is advanced by the US feminist Meredith Tax, who wrote
a pamphlet developing and broadening the arguments against Cage for
Sahgal's Centre for Secular Space. In her pamphlet, Tax blurs the lines between
religiously inspired political movements and terrorist organisations by
defining human rights abuses justified in religious terms as acts of terrorism.
She
argues that it is 'critically important' that human rights advocates should
track violations by states, but argues that 'it is also incumbent upon human
rights organisations to scrutinise the ideology of groups they defend' and to
make it clear they 'do not support their beliefs' (p.28). Even leaving aside
the highly questionable argument that the abuses Tax describes should be
defined as terrorism, or the notion that such abuses justified in religious
terms should be treated as fundamentally distinct from those that are not,
there is still a serious problem here.

The implications of Tax's argument seems to
be that one should focus on the practices
of states, and the ideologies of
non-state actors. But then why is it not equally incumbent on human rights
organisations to make clear that they do not support the beliefs or ideologies
of particular governments? Should Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
be condemning the ideology of Zionism rather than the abuses of the Israeli
government? No, and the reason is obvious: human rights organisations have
always focused on recording abuses, campaigning on due process and advocating for
reforms, whilst avoiding being drawn onto the slippery slope of criticising
political ideologies. The distinction between ideas and action is fundamental
to human rights work, and indeed to the liberal system of law on which it is
based, and it is precisely this distinction which authoritarian
counter-terrorism laws have eroded.

The
logical leaps in the arguments advanced by Sahgal, Tax and others are clear
enough if one chooses to address the substance and the evidence, rather than
being drawn in by the rhetoric and insinuations. Begg may have voiced support
for armed resistance to occupation and oppression, but where is the actual
evidence that he opposes women's rights, for example? Neither Sahgal, nor her
supporters, nor the array of reactionary forces determined to undermine Cage's
work have to our knowledge produced any.

Conclusion: what is at
stake

In
a way though, all this heat and light on the alleged misdeeds of Cage and its
staff are not really the point. The real reason Cage is being attacked is not to
be found in any speech by the Prime Minister, the 'research' by the think tanks,
or the howls of outrage from the media. The real reason is that it is an
effective human rights organisation that is dedicated to defending the rights
of terror suspects (and indeed of convicted 'terrorists' where there are
concerns about due process and the safety of convictions). What is actually at
stake here? It is not just a question of defending the reputation of Cage, but
of actively supporting its work with the victims of the 'War on Terror'. This
is because it is intrinsically a matter of justice, but also because the more
injustice is piled up by wrongful convictions and abuses of power, the greater
the price that British society will pay for its failure to listen to those
pointing to its abuse of 'democracy, the rule of law, individual
liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and
beliefs'. These are, as alert observers
will have noted, the terms used by the
government to define 'British values'.

If
we say nothing now when they come for Cage, there will be nobody left to speak
for the rest of us. Nor will there be anyone to speak for those future victims
of miscarriages of justice, the Birmingham Sixes and Guildford Fours of this
ever expanding and apparently never ending 'war'.

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